


melatonin and caffeine

by emeraldpalace



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Getting Together, M/M, Making Out, Past Daishou Suguru/Yamaka Mika, Swearing, and they were ROOMMATES, oh my god they were roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21545077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldpalace/pseuds/emeraldpalace
Summary: ‘lol are you crazy’, Kuroo replies to him when Yaku texts him the proposal.“Are you a sadist? Do you just want to torture me?” Daishou asks him dramatically after he poses the question after a late-night practice between the two of them.Yaku himself doesn’t deny either accusation, but first and foremost he considers himself a fucking genius.
Relationships: Daishou Suguru/Kuroo Tetsurou, Daishou Suguru/Yaku Morisuke, Kuroo Tetsurou/Yaku Morisuke, Kuroo Tetsurou/Yaku Morisuke/Daishou Suguru
Comments: 58
Kudos: 429
Collections: My beloved stories





	melatonin and caffeine

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaand I'm done with this, finally!! and I created the kuroyakushou tag, which was honestly my biggest motivation for this
> 
> Disclaimer that I literally do not know anything about japanese university volleyball so all of that is just me making what i think are reasonable guesses
> 
> Big thanks to keola and natalie for beta-reading it!!

It’s a funny thing, how small a city of 14 million people could be, for Daishou and Yaku to end up on the same university, trying out for the same volleyball team at the same time.

“Well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” Yaku hears a familiar voice croon behind him, and tries his best not to let the surprise show on his face. 

“Oh, Daishou. Hello.”

“You remember my name, Yaku? I feel so honoured.”

“It’d be hard not to, with you and Kuroo’s eternal pissing contest at each other.”

Daishou looks at him in surprise and then laughs with unexpected openness. He looks around the gym that’s slowly filling with other students from their university. “Did he also come here?” he asks.

“Nah,” Yaku replies while leaning down into a stretch. “Tokai.”

Daishou whistles. “Was he scouted?”

“No, he went there for the chemistry program, but he’ll be trying out for the team as well.”

He looks annoyed at that for some reason, but quickly turns around to take a ball from the cart and faces Yaku with an off-putting smile.

“Wanna warm up together?”

Yaku doesn’t particularly want to, but he also has no reason to say no, so he might as well. 

They don’t talk much after that, first too busy with passing the ball between each other to warm up, and then being made to do drills and play in small matches to see their skills in action.

Neither of them is bad—Yaku would even say that he and Daishou are pretty good players, but it’s also clear that they don’t really catch the coaches’ eyes either. Not that he really expected otherwise, but Daishou seems to disagree.

“They should have put you in the first string,” he comments next practice, when their placements are announced.

“What?” Yaku asks in pure bewilderment. “Barely any first-years make it into the first string unless they were scouted.”

“That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be. You’re better than the reserve libero at least.”

“Okay, what do you want from me? You’re being way too nice.”

Daishou glares at him with a bitterness that makes Yaku freeze on the spot.

“I don’t _want_ anything,” he hisses out. “I’m just saying it how it is.”

“...Sorry,” Yaku says after a while. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just don’t see why you’re saying that,” he explains, because he really doesn’t, and for what it’s worth, he considers himself to be pretty self-aware of his skills.

Daishou still frowns at him, but his features soften when he sighs. “I played against him yesterday, and he seems like an impatient guy—he let himself be lured in by a couple of shots to the back in a row, and then left a huge hole in the middle of the court. You wouldn’t make such a rookie mistake.”

Yaku feels stunned by the praise. “That… doesn’t sound great, but maybe he’s just a bit out of practice after vacation.”  
  
“Well, clearly you aren’t.”

“Maybe he just had a bad day.”

“Oh my god, can you just take the damn compliment already!?” Daishou snaps before seemingly being surprised by his own outburst. Yaku is surprised as well, but he ends up laughing at Daishou’s shocked expression more than anything.

“Well, okay, if you _insist_ ,” Yaku says between the last of his giggles. “But thank you. You’re pretty good yourself.”

“I know I am,” Daishou huffs, but Yaku recognizes the sheepish look away coupled with reddened cheeks as embarrassment.

Daishou is really not so bad, he decides then.

* * *

>did he kidnap you and force you to say that

Kuroo replies when Yaku relays his thoughts to him.

>blink once if you’re in danger

<I’m serious, idk what your deal is with him  
<I mean he can be a bit of an ass but so can you  
<You’re honestly pretty similar actually

>EXCUSE ME  
>friendship ended with yaku, now kenma is my best friend

<He’s your best friend anyway dumbass

>my friendship with you is still over, i can’t believe that you Dare to insult me like that  
>he’s a terrible human being and also a filthy thief and liar

<What do you mean?

>okay so our parents are actually friends right  
>and well i guess we used to be when i was little as well but i was just young and naive then and i didn’t really know anyone else yk how it is  
>so i had this one plushie i Really loved, it was my bff4lyf 

Yaku stares in disbelief, already getting a feeling of where this story is going.

>and it was shortly after we moved to nerima that his family visited us and my plushie disappeared exactly that night there’s just NO way anyone else took it bc no one else was in my room except for him and that’s when it disappeared  
>and then the fucker goes and denies it to his death even though i Know it was him and then he also went around and told everyone in my old school that i wet my pants and they believed him  
>like who does that but a filthy liar trying to distract from his crime

He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He ends up doing both, barely managing to get out a coherent reply.

<So you’re telling me  
<That this whole rivalry between you two  
<Is because you think that he stole your toy and he told everyone that you peed your pants

>yakkun this is serious stuff when you’re 6 years old okay

<Are you still 6 then?

>it’s a childhood trauma, you don’t understand

<You’re right this friendship is over, I don’t want to be friends with a child  
<Now Daishou is my best friend

>DONT YOU DARE

* * *

“He’s an asshole, obviously,” Daishou says when Yaku decides to ask him about the weird antagonism too. “And he constantly accuses me of things, like stealing his dumb plushie, or copying him when I started to play volleyball in middle school—”

That’s new information to Yaku, and he wonders if Kuroo actually does see how ridiculous the whole situation sounds, at least to some extent.

“—And after he moved and I saw him again it was all ‘Kenma this, Kenma that’, like, hello? I’m right there? You don’t just constantly talk about your other friends with your friends, what kind of message does that send!?”

It’s almost funny to see Daishou get riled up so easily when it comes to Kuroo, when he usually tries to keep some semblance of composure, at least from the way Yaku sees him during practice. He can’t help but prod further.

“So you got jealous because Kuroo found another friend?”

Daishou glares at him in offense. “I wasn’t _jealous_ , we weren’t even friends to begin with, we just had to hang out since our parents saw each other so often,” he scoffs, but with a certain strain in his voice.

“And that’s why you decided to tell everyone that he peed his pants?” Yaku grins.

“Well, what was I supposed to do, just let him accuse me of something I didn’t do!?”

“You could, I don’t know, talk it out and try to find the toy together?”

Daishou looks away. “... I tried that.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“I did! It’s not my fault he started being a huge crybaby and calling me names immediately,” Daishou says indignantly, “so I had to do something about it.”

“By embarrassing him?”

“‘ _If your enemy is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him_ ’,” he quotes. “It’s a valuable lesson I learned early in life.”

Yaku sighs deeply, which turns into a hollow, disbelieving laugh halfway through. “God, I can’t believe you two. You’re so similar.”

“Ugh, don’t say that, I’m offended.”

“Kuroo said the same thing!”

Daishou visibly recoils.

* * *

Yaku’s first few months in university go by both very slowly and incredibly fast at once. Sometimes the days just drag on and on, classes making him almost fall asleep in his seat and assignments writing themselves at what feels like a snail’s pace, and during other times he blinks and his birthday has already gone by and Kuroo starts sending him more and more selfies in the ever darkening 6am dawn when he gets ready for his commute from home.

It makes him very glad that his cousin happened to know two girls who were looking for a roommate at the start of the academic year, since the same fate might have befallen him otherwise—or he would have had to stay at his university’s dorms, which doesn’t sound much better if Daishou’s accounts are anything to go by.

His roommates also feel like the best ones he could have asked for—responsible, relatively quiet, but still overall nice to be around, solving conflicts directly but without any hard feelings—which is why Yaku can’t help but be sad when both of them decide to move out at the same time.

Not that he begrudges either of them for moving in with her girlfriend, and going to study overseas, respectively, but where else will he find not only one, but two roommates he gets along with and that he can trust to do their share of housework when it comes down to it?

He feels almost embarrassed when it takes him a whole two weeks to come up with the idea, and it’s not even because of his own imagination—but simply the coincidence of him opening another tired selfie from Kuroo followed by an equally tired Daishou showing up to practice while complaining about being sexiled again.

‘ _lol are you crazy_ ’, Kuroo replies to him when Yaku texts him the proposal.

“Are you a sadist? Do you just want to torture me?” Daishou asks him dramatically after he poses the question after a late-night practice between the two of them.

Yaku himself doesn’t deny either accusation, but first and foremost he considers himself a fucking genius.

“Look, you,” he points at Kuroo sitting across from him, “need a place because you don’t want to commute all the way from Nerima anymore. And you,” he looks to Daishou sitting at his side,”told me that you want to leave the dorms because your roommate is a dick.”

Daishou’s nose curls at the mention of the annoying roommate who constantly brings people over and doesn’t clean up after himself, but he still makes sure to direct that irritation at Kuroo in the same way he has done since the other arrived at the café.

“And I,” Yaku continues, “have an apartment with two empty rooms starting October, since both of my roommates are moving out. It would solve all our problems at the same time.”

“ _Yakkun_ ,” Kuroo whines, “Couldn’t you have just told me and then we could’ve found another person together? Does our friendship mean nothing to you?”

“You’re forgetting that I’m also friends with Yaku now.”

“Well, I’ve known him longer!”

“We played against each other in middle school, so technically I’ve known him even longer than you have.”

“Ha! We played against each other in middle school too.”

“What year—“

“Both of you shut up!” Yaku barks and immediately regrets it since the other tenants in the café turn to look at him. He bows his head in apology towards them, and then sighs at the other two.

“Do you always have to do this?” he asks. “I know that neither of you is actually the asshole you like to pretend you are.”

For a moment he thinks that they would argue that point in order to insult each other further, but instead they just look away in awkward shame. It’s something, at least.

“...Can I look at the apartment first?” Kuroo finally grumbles out.

“No, dumbass, I’m inviting you to live with me without ever showing you the place.”

He rolls his eyes and Daishou snickers before speaking up, “I want to take another look at it as well.” 

“So you’ve already been there?” Kuroo asks with a raised eyebrow.

“I asked to spend the night a couple of times when I knew my roommate would be bringing someone home,” Daishou replies with a weird tone of pride, matched by the frown on Kuroo’s face. Yaku doesn’t understand how something like that would be another thing for them to compete over, but he can’t even pretend to understand the vitriolic animosity between them.

“ _Anyways_ ,” Yaku says with a severe undertone, making the two look back to him. “Are you free on the weekend?”

* * *

Kuroo and Daishou are trying to knock each other down the stairs when Yaku opens the door to the apartment, but thankfully they shut up as soon as he closes it in their faces again. They’re even surprisingly quiet as they walk around and look at everything, letting Yaku do most of the talking and explaining, even with the occasional glare at each other when one entered a room before the other.

They both return to the living room within a couple of minutes, looking reluctantly not-pissed-off.

“It’s a good apartment,” Daishou finally starts.

“...It is,” Kuroo admits. “Pretty close to the university too.”

“Both of them.”

They agree, and yet, they can’t help but still glare at each other silently. Yaku sighs.

“Look, I can’t force you guys to get along and live together or whatever,” he starts, “but I don’t want to choose between you, so either you both agree, or I find someone else.”

Kuroo hums thoughtfully, looking at the ground, while Daishou crosses his arms and looks between Yaku and Kuroo, then at the fairly nicely decorated living room, that Yaku takes a small amount of pride in.

“And you know, it’s not like you have to spend the next ten years together, you can still move out later if you really don’t get along,” Yaku continues, and that makes the other two look at each other, with less frowning and more… considering. Yaku dares to hope.

“I want the bigger room,” Kuroo finally announces, a challenge in his voice.

“Good, I wanted the smaller one anyway.”

“Huh? Why?”

“It gets more sunlight, which will be better for my plants.”

“Your… plants?” 

“Yes, my plants—is all your hair clogging up your ears too?”

“You know, I was _this_ close to agreeing-”

“ _Guys_ ,” Yaku groans. “Do you want this apartment or not!?”

They look at each other for a long moment again, which Yaku is slowly getting really tired of, when Kuroo sighs and stretches out his hand.

“It’s not for forever anyway,” he grumbles, without looking at Daishou.

“Yeah, whatever, I can still move out if you’re being too much of a pain in the ass,” the other replies, also pouting and demonstratively not looking at him, but he shakes the hand anyway.

Yaku breathes a sigh of relief.

* * *

Yaku is an optimist so he had faith that Kuroo and Daishou would get their shit together and get along eventually, but even he is surprised at how smooth the transition actually ends up being.

Kuroo showers at night, while Daishou showers in the morning, which is great since both of them take an unnaturally long time, but Yaku usually gets up and goes to sleep earlier than either of them, so they all barely cross paths in the bathroom.

Daishou said immediately that he always wanted to clean the bathroom since he finds it therapeutic, and Kuroo even thanked him since that’s his most hated chore—he offered to do the kitchen instead, and Yaku didn’t mind taking over the living room himself.

Even food becomes less of an issue than Yaku is used to, because Kuroo likes cooking and always does it for the whole household, and while Daishou doesn’t, he works part-time as a waiter and is usually allowed to bring back the leftovers at the end of the day.

They work well together. It’s almost harmonic.

Almost.

“What the hell, she clearly should just stay with her husband, the guy is such a dick.”

“The husband isn’t any better, he doesn’t even care about her interests at all!”

“Yeah, but at least he doesn’t break at least ten traffic laws every time he rides his bike!”

“God, you’re gonna be such an annoying lawyer—”

“That’s _literally_ what I’m studying—”

“Both of you shut up or I’m taking the TV to my room!” Yaku snaps between them, getting the two to finally stop their bickering - before Daishou snorts out a laugh.

“Can you even lift it?” he asks with a nod at the large flatscreen that he brought from home. Yaku won’t take back his words about Daishou being an overall decent person, but he doesn’t appreciate him getting ballsy enough to start insulting Yaku as well.

“Huh?” Yaku his eyebrow. “I could lift _you_ if I wanted to.”

“No way,” Daishou scoffs and Yaku can feel Kuroo tensing up behind him. Oh, he _knows_.

“Want me to prove it?”

“Sure, go ahead,” Daishou replies easily, but seems surprised hen Yaku immediately gets up and pulls Daishou along with him.

“Huh—”

“Stay still,” Yaku orders and tries not to grin back at Kuroo, who barely seems to be holding it together.

Back to the task at hand, Yaku makes sure that Daishou, albeit warily, is standing still. Then he promptly bends down, hugs the taller one around his midsection, and stands back up again, Daishou squawking as he falls over his shoulder.

Kuroo can’t hold in his laughter anymore, openly cackling at the display and even Yaku can’t hold back his satisfied grin as he drops Daishou back on the ground, who still gapes at him speechlessly.

“Holy shit,” he finally mumbles, and Yaku and Kuroo break out in even more laughter, ignorant to the blush forming on their roommate’s face.

* * *

“I can’t,” Daishou groans as he hits his head on their dining table, covered in notes of various subjects as they all study for their finals.

“For once I agree,” Kuroo sighs. “How about we all just run away to the countryside and start a farm together?”

“Like hell we are,” Yaku replies. “I didn’t pay all those tuition fees just to give up now.”

“Why are you so motivated?” Daishou frowns at him over the top of his glasses. Yaku still isn’t fully used to the sight, even if it objectively looks good, and turns his gaze back to his notes.

“I’m not motivated, I just want to get it all over with,” he replies and takes another sip of his coffee. He doesn’t even _like_ coffee.

They get back to studying after synchronized sighs from all of them, which lasts for another ten minutes before Yaku is the one leaning his head on the table with a groan. 

“Fuck it. I give up.”

“Yakkun, you can’t give up, your motivation is the only reason we’re still trying!”

“I don’t care, deal with it,” Yaku yawns into his hand, and frowns at the slides on his laptop again. “Why the _fuck_ do I need to know what a medulla oblongata is? I won’t _ever_ need to look at a brain scan in my life.”

“Medulla oblongata…,” Kuroo repeats. “Kinda sounds like hakuna matata.”

“Huh. It does,” Daishou comments. “Medulla oblongata,” he mumbles, vaguely to the tune of the song.

“ _No_.”

“What a wonderful phrase,” Kuroo grins.

“Medulla oblongata… Ain’t no passing… brains?”

“God, stop—”

“It means no worries, for the rest of your brains!”

“It's our problem-free,” Daishou smirks, “ _biology_.”

“Medulla oblongata!” Kuroo finishes singing and then meets Daishou in the middle of the table for a high-five, both of them grinning. Yaku would laugh at the way both of them force themselves to frown and look away right afterwards, if he wasn’t so miserable.

“This never happened,” Daishou says seriously.

“No one saw it.”

“I wish I didn’t,” Yaku groans. “That was terrible.”

“Hey, maybe you should make a whole cover about the brain,” Kuroo suggests with a pat on his shoulder. “That could probably help you study.” 

“My anatomy final is at 8.”

“So you have what, nine hours left? Easy.”

“I still have the endocrine system to go through as well.”

“We’ll help,” Daishou offers.

“Study for your own finals!” Yaku barks and reluctantly turns back to his own notes. He tries to concentrate on that damned brain anatomy again, when suddenly the tune of the Disney songs starts playing in his mind.

“Fuck, now I have that stuck in my head,” he groans. Kuroo and Daishou both cackle at him, and Yaku makes sure to kick his former teammate in his side, and his current one in the shin, even if he barely reaches him under the table.

* * *

“Hey, how are things with your girlfriend?” Kuroo randomly asks Daishou one evening when they go out to dinner in a cheap but hearty take-away place.

Daishou hums in thought. “Alright, I guess.”

“You guess?” Yaku asks.

“Ah, we haven’t really been talking that much lately, because of exams and stuff.”

“That sucks,” Kuroo comments in a rare bout of empathy towards the other. “You said she studies in Kyoto, right?”

“Yeah, so it’s kinda hard to meet up, too,” Daishou sighs. “The last time we saw each other was in the summer, so…”

“How long have you been together?” Yaku asks.

“Well, altogether, since first year of high school.”

Kuroo whistles. “Wow, I’m actually impressed. Did you confess, or…?”

“Well…” Daishou starts off a little sheepishly. “It was kinda mutual?”

“Oh?”

“Well, at some point, some dickheads in school found out I was bi, right? And they started talking shit about me, but I didn’t really do anything because I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of getting to me—but Mika was in my class and basically told off everyone who talked about me, since she’s bi too. Then we started talking, and hanging out, and people started asking us if we were dating, so we kinda went ‘ _why not_?’ and—yeah,” he finishes off with a scratch on his neck, but a soft smile at the memory. “She’s really cool.”

“What the hell!” Kuroo exclaims and punches into Daishou’s shoulder.

“Ow! What was that for!?”

“You guys are too cute, I’m gonna get cavities!” he laments, “Yakkun, why does he get such a cute love story and we don’t?”

“Stop being so petty,” Yaku tells Kuroo with a slap on his arm, which he’s glad results in a pained wince, before turning to Daishou. “That sounds really nice,” he says genuinely. “I’m glad you found someone like that.”

“Oh, uhm—thanks,” Daishou replies awkwardly, and looks away with a blush. “I’m glad too.”

They switch topics soon enough, though Yaku’s mind keeps drifting back to Daishou’s story, and to him coming to them for the first time. It’s nothing that really matters, nothing that _should_ matter, especially since Yaku is gay, and he knows that Kuroo is bi, too—it’s just a funny coincidence, really. 

And yet, for some reason, the thought makes something inside him squeeze tight all evening.

* * *

“We’re home!” Yaku calls as soon as he and Daishou enter in their apartment after staying behind for extra practice with a couple of other people, the smell and sound of something sizzling in a pan being a welcome change from the harsh winter winds outside.

“Welcome home!” Kuroo calls from the kitchen, “I’m pretty much done with dinner!”

“Thank god,” Yaku sighs as he takes off his jacket and shoes and all but sprints to the kitchen where Kuroo is scooping fried noodles onto three plates.

“You’re an angel,” Yaku says as he quickly takes out chopsticks and one of the plates. Daishou follows right behind him and tries to do the same, but Kuroo demonstratively stands in front of the counter, blocking off the other two plates.

“What?” Daishou asks.

“Say thank you first,” Kuroo demands.

“Yaku didn’t say thank you either.”

“Yeah, but he called me _angel_ ,” he replies in satisfaction. 

“He’s a cat, he knows how to play nice to get his food.”

“So you’re saying you’re dumber than a cat?”

“I’m saying I’m not a kiss-ass.”

“I can hear you!” Yaku calls from the table in the living room, but is promptly ignored.

“Well, don’t you think I deserve a little bit of appreciation after feeding you half the time?”

“Thanks. Now give me the food.”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Kuroo tuts, and Yaku can pretty much hear the grin on his face. “Shouldn’t you be a little more sincere?” 

He hears a sigh and then, “Oh, _Kuroo-kun_ , thank you _so_ much for always cooking _such_ delicious and still healthy food for me and Yaku, even waiting for both of us to come home later after practice, I _truly_ appreciate it—”

“Ew, no, get off—”

Yaku raises an eyebrow at the words and turns around to look through the entryway to the kitchen, only to see Daishou hugging Kuroo around his waist, fluttering his eyelashes up at him, while the taller one tries to push him away with one hand.

“But _Tetsurou-kun_ ,” Daishou continues crooning, “Didn’t you want me to show how much I appreciate you? Or do you want some other kind of thank you as well?” 

Kuroo freezes at that, wide-eyed before he turns away with a visible blush on his face.

“God, you can have the food, just stop that.”

“Thanks, that was exhausting,” Daishou groans and retracts his hands, one plate already in hand.

“Oi, you bastard—”

“Children, play nice!” Yaku calls to them, trying to suppress his grin at the earlier display.

“Yes, mother,” Daishou sighs sarcastically as he moves past him, without looking back at Kuroo, who seems to mumble something under his breath before removing his white apron with black cats, and joining them at the table.

“So how was practice?” He asks.

“Good,” Yaku replies curtly around a mouthful of food.

“They’re probably gonna move Yaku to first string next term,” Daishou says.

“What!?”

“Oh my god, don’t _say_ that,” Yaku groans. “No one said anything like that.”

“The coach was really praising him today,” Daishou continues shamelessly, “And our starting libero will be graduating next year anyway, so there’s a good chance that you’ll be moved so you can start practicing with the regulars already.”

“Just because he praised me today doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to be a regular.”

“I’m _telling_ you,” Daishou insists. “Even the second-years today said so.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Yaku says, even as he feels his face reddening. 

“Aw, there it is, the Yakkun that can’t take a compliment,” Kuroo coos, “How cute.”

“You shut up too!” he says and kicks Kuroo under the table, though softer than he usually would.

“And you?” Kuroo takes mercy on Yaku and turns to Daishou, “You’re just gonna be left behind like that?”

“ _I_ am working on improving myself steadily,” he replies proudly, “that’s why I usually stay behind too. What about you, huh? Did you already quit the club or why do you never do extra practice?”

Kuroo’s face falls uncomfortably fast, though he covers it up with an annoyed eye roll. “They don’t let first-years do extra practice,” he grumbles, “since there’d be too many people otherwise.”

“Ouch,” Daishou says. “That’s harsh.”

“That’s Tokai for you,” Kuroo says in resignation.

“You could probably come join us, if you wanted to,” Yaku says. “The guys are usually pretty chill.”

“Wait, really?” 

“Yeah, why not?”

“You really don’t have to—”

“What?” Daishou suddenly pipes up. “Are you just scared that you’re not gonna be able to beat me ?”

“Huh?” Kuroo looks down at him. “I could take you any day, shorty.”

“Shorty? Aren’t you the one compensating your shortness with your hair?”

“I’m still taller than you, with or without hair!”

“Maybe, but I bet you still won’t be able to block me, being so out of practice as you are.”

“I’ll show you who’s out of practice—”

Yaku doesn’t interrupt them this time, but he does give Daishou a small grateful smile. The other pretends to ignore it in order to continue gloating at Kuroo, but Yaku does feel a little nudge on his foot in return.

* * *

Kuroo does join them next week for practice, traipsing in slightly awkwardly but quickly finding his footing in the familiar atmosphere of volleyball. Yaku was right, and no one does mind—some people are actually curious about Kuroo being from Tokai, as him about their current team, and Kuroo is as teasing as he is tight-lipped, not revealing anything outstanding, but fueling a sense of friendly rivalry all the same. It feels a little nostalgic even, this camaraderie with the undertone of competition, especially when Kuroo demonstratively joins the other side from Yaku and Daishou.

Yaku notices the glint in Kuroo’s eyes as he looks at him, places himself according to muscle memory, and is almost blindsided when the ball comes at him faster, at a vastly different angle than he ever remembers Kuroo doing. The ball bounces backwards over the top of his arms all the way into the wall behind him.

“Hey!” he calls over the net immediately. “Since when is your jump serve so good!?”

“What, you thought you were the only one practicing the last couple of months?” Kuroo replies with a shit-eating grin, and gets ready for another serve. 

It’s just as powerful as the previous one, and while Yaku does get it up this time, he calls out a ‘Sorry!’ since it still goes a little off-kilter. They still manage to score, and Yaku can’t pretend not to be just a little relieved about that. 

“Aw, and I wanted to hit some more serves at Yakkun,” Kuroo calls dramatically as he switches out with the libero on the other side. 

He hears a couple of teammates echo ‘Yakkun?’ in confusion, and is about to make a snarky retort himself, when Daishou speaks up next to him. 

“Woah, your personality is really bad, huh?”

“Look who’s talking, you snake!”

“Take it to the bedroom you two!” Someone else calls, and Yaku can’t help but laugh at the way both of them flinch with disgust on their faces.

They play some more, and Kuroo’s serves keep being annoying but Yaku gets used to them eventually, to Kuroo’s irritation and his delight. Still, the set ends in Kuroo’s team’s favour, the other easily high fiving everyone else with a grin, and they decide to switch up the teams for the next one.

“Woah, that brings back memories,” Kuroo coos as he eyes Daishou on the opposite side of the net.

“Ready to get beaten again?” Yaku asks provocatively.

Daishou gasps and clutches his heart. “I expected that him from _him_ , but that you would throw our friendship away like that, Yakkun? Unbelievable.”

“Hey, only I can call him that!” 

Yaku raises an eyebrow. “Kai calls me that sometimes. Bokuto too.”

“Well yeah, but they have my permission! Since I came up with it.”

“Wow, you’re really gonna act like a jealous boyfriend?” Daishou teases, and Kuroo freezes.

“Well, no, but—” He fumbles for his words uncharacteristically, and Daishou laughs at him, though it sounds hollow, to Yaku’s ears. There’s an uneasy tension suddenly, that Yaku can feel surrounding them, feels it within himself too, but he can’t quite make sense of it, can’t quite grasp it—he doesn’t have the time to, when the whistle blows to signal the start of the set.

Yaku’s team wins this time, which both him and Kuroo take as an ample opportunity to gloat at their other roommate, but Yaku is the only one to keep laughing when they switch their teams up yet again and Daishou ends up moving to their side. He and Kuroo glare daggers at each other, and demonstratively move to different lines, and somehow there’s even more bickering between them now than when they were on opposite side—and yet, they still work surprisingly well, when they need to, like when Daishou happens to set the ball almost perfectly to Kuroo’s position, earning them a point even when they rally didn’t start off in the best way for them.

Kuroo stares at his hand in disbelief once, before turning back and glaring at Daishou.

“...What?” 

“It should’ve been higher.”

“I’m not even a setter, you should be thankful that it was this good!”

It does get better though, when a couple of plays later, Daishou happens to receive a strong spike that goes right towards Yaku.

“Sorry!”

“Got it! Kuroo!” He calls out and makes an overhand toss to his old teammate—he’s just started practicing them lately, but the motion of seeing Kuroo hit a ball that Yaku sent over soothes a sort of nostalgic ache he didn’t even realize he had.

He ends up high-fiving Kuroo, and then Daishou right after, telling him ‘Don’t mind’, and they both look at each other with challenging, but also uncertain frowns—Yaku sighs, turning their attention towards him and gives them an expectant raised eyebrow.

“...Nice kill,” Daishou grumbles.

“You’ll get it next time,” Kuroo replies, painfully, and looking away with a pout. 

Yaku chuckles and gives both of them a clap on the shoulder.

* * *

**Kuroo  
**>you will Never guess what I just found again

Kuroo texts in the apartment group chat, which is rare, since they usually just use it for coordinating their schedules, because any personal things they usually can talk out in person—but it’s winter break, they’re all back home, so maybe that’s why.

The next message is a picture, of Kuroo’s hand holding a tattered toy—it takes a while for Yaku to recognize it as a cat, amongst the cloying lumps of grey fur where it’s unclear how much of it is the original colour and how much of it is just the dust.

<Omg is that the one?

 **Kuroo  
**>y e p  
>i was helping kenma clean out his things and we found it at the veeeeery back of his closet

<Why did Kenma have the toy that you thought Daishou stole???

 **Kuroo  
** >so funny story right   
>apparently i was hanging out at kenma’s that day  
>and i brought the toy along but i had to leave in a hurry and just left it there  
>at least that’s what kenma says bc i don’t remember shit lmao  
>but yeah somehow it got mixed up with his things and we didn’t find it until now

<Wow  
<So it was actually your fault

 **Kuroo  
**>hey don’t say that!! We all make mistakes!!

Yaku sends a single eye roll emoji and goes back to reading the book he was going through, when maybe ten minutes later his phone lights up with a notification again.

 **Daishou  
**>YOU ASSHOLE

Is the first thing he reads, and then the next few notifications appear in lightning quick succession.

 **Daishou  
** >I ALWAYS TOLD YOU I DIDNT DO IT AND I WAS FUCKING RIGHT  
>YOU OWE ME LIKE A MILLION YEN

 **Kuroo  
**>YOU ALREADY GOT YOUR REVENGE WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT

 **Daishou  
** >A written apology, along with a verbal one in a full bow, a homemade cake and dinner every day for the next 11 years  
>To make up for the emotional trauma of being wrongfully accused  
>It scarred me for life you know

 **Kuroo  
** >like hell i owe you anything!! I got emotional trauma from that stunt you pulled too  
>i already had social anxiety like cmon dude

 **Daishou  
**>You still started it

Kuroo replies with a couple of middle finger emojis, while Yaku decides to open the app again with a smile.

<Well, now that that’s over, maybe you can finally be friends again!

 **Daishou  
**>G r o s s 

Kuroo follows immediately with a row of throwing up emojis

<See, you’re already on the same wavelength  
<Gotta love a childhood friends to enemies to friends story

They’re still equally offended by the sentiment, but Yaku wasn’t even joking when he suggested that they make up officially, because slowly but surely he’s observed that they really don’t hate each other—at least not anymore, even if they like to pretend otherwise.

Kuroo is the last one of them to return to the apartment just before their break ends, on Sunday evening, but Daishou doesn’t waste any time in walking into the hallway and starting Kuroo down expectantly as soon as he walks in.

“What?”

“I’m still waiting for that apology,” he replies. 

“Huh? Who said I’ll ever give you one?” Kuroo says in a challenging tone.

“I did—Hey!” Daishou yells once Kuroo’s simply brushes past him and into the living room, where Yaku is passively watching some sort of drama on TV.

Kuroo pulls off his backpack and onto the dining table, reaches inside and pulls out an opaque plastic bag where Yaku can’t quite tell what’s inside from where he’s sitting at the couch, but Kuroo pushes it towards Daishou.

“Here.”

“What?” Daishou’s face drops from a frown into pure surprise when he looks at the contents. “Papico? Why?”

“You like it, right?” Kuroo says dismissively, but Yaku can see the awkwardness on his face as he turns back to unpacking, “And I saw that they were on sale, so.”

“H-huh. Thanks, I guess…” 

Yaku can’t help but smile. “That’s cute.”

“L-like hell it is!” Kuroo exclaims. “I just didn’t want to be in his debt!”

“You still owe me way more than that, asshole!” Daishou replies, but promptly stomps off into the kitchen, probably looking just as mortified as Kuroo. Then, Yaku’s gaze falls onto the other things Kuroo laid out on the table, from his laptop, to his toiletries, to—

“Oh my god, is that it?” he asks and already gets up and moves towards the stuffed toy cat lying on the table. Its fur is a similar shade of grey to the picture he vaguely remembers but it’s soft to the touch, no sign of clots, or dirt anywhere.

“It looks better than in the picture,” he comments.

“Yeah, my mom washed h- it,” Kuroo replies slowly.

“And you brought it back with you? That’s adorable.”

Kuroo is about to retort, when Daishou walks back into the room, one ice cream already in hand. “Oh wow, I never thought I’d see Kitty-chan in the flesh again,” he says almost genuinely.

Yaku raises a curious eyebrow. “...Kitty-chan?”

“So?” Kuroo huffs. “She’s cute and needs a cute name!” He exclaims, and pulls the toy from Yaku’s grasp, petting her softly and Yaku can’t quite tell if it’s exaggerated offense or not.

It’s adorable either way, he thinks.

* * *

“I told you so,” Daishou tells him with a clap on the back.

“I hate to say it, but he was right,” Kuroo adds. “It was a matter of time anyway.”

Yaku stares down at his number 19 jersey, still a little in awe. 

“Go on, put it on!” Kuroo urges him.

“Huh? Why?”

“So we can take a picture, duh,” Daishou adds.

“I already took a picture with the whole team.”

“But you have to brag about yourself, specifically!” Kuroo insists. “Get those Instagram likes.”

“I really don’t care about that-”

“Just get changed already!” Daishou pushes him into his room and he has no choice but to comply, really. 

He still can’t quite believe it, even if the coach’s announcement of the lineup was loud and clear after everyone who was about to graduate left the club to focus on their final theses. It’s not that Yaku thought that it’s completely out of the realm of possibilities—but he always knew that university is a whole other level entirely, and assumed that he would have to fight tooth and nail to play at all, rather than just getting by with his small talent for the position like he did in middle and high school. He doesn’t want to sound arrogant by saying that it was easy—because it sure as hell wasn’t, making it to almost every practice despite his schoolwork, but he can’t think of it as having been excruciatingly difficult, either. 

It’s a weird feeling, acknowledging that you _are_ better than you thought you were.

“Come on, strike a pose!” Kuroo tells him when he comes out of his room again.

Yaku slowly puts one hand to his hip, tilts his chin up with uncertainty.

“That just looks awkward,” Kuroo tells him through his phone’s camera.

“It does,” Daishou agrees, looking at him directly.

“Well, what do you want me to do!?” Yaku asks. “It’s not a big deal anyway-”  
“Nooo, we need to commemorate it somehow!” Kuroo whines. 

“Why don’t we just take a selfie? That’ll be more natural anyway.”

Kuroo stays quiet for a moment, and then shoots a dirty glare at Daishou. “...That’s a good idea, I guess.”

“Then why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because it came from you.”

“Can we just take the picture already?” Yaku interrupts them.

They huddle close, moving around because Daishou insists that it’ll look bad if there’s anything but a blank white wall in the background, and then Kuroo teases that they should get a stool for Yaku, since you can’t even see his uniform when Kuroo tries to get all of their heads in the same frame. It earns him a prompt jab in his side, but eventually he does crouch down so he can lift the arm that isn’t around Yaku’s shoulder and get the jersey into the picture as well.

Yaku lets him upload the picture to his own account, since he barely uses his—though he still gets a notification when he is tagged in it.

“Congrats on making the team!” the caption reads, followed by “#Proud #IgnoreThatUglySnakeInTheBack”

“Oi, Kuroo!” Daishou calls not a minute later, before Yaku gets another notification, this time for a comment. ****

 **sugu_dai** Who you calling ugly you chicken  
**kurokurokuroo** u snake  
**sugu_dai** Square up birdbrain  
**yaku.mori** Isn’t this post supposed to be about me  
**kurokurokuroo** _@yaku.mori_ you look beautiful as always<3

Yaku doesn’t deign that with a reply, but he does feel warm when Daishou, in an undoubtedly huge show of personal willpower, actually likes Kuroo’s last comment.

* * *

Even if Yaku did technically become a member of the official lineup, he still makes sure not to become too confident—he’s still only the backup, and his upperclassman still has a whole year of playing ahead of him, so he’s sure that he won’t get that many chances to play in serious matches just yet.

He tells Kuroo and Daishou as much, but they still insist on coming to the team’s first practice match of the new school year.

“I have to be there to support the team anyway,” Daishou claims.

“And I don’t have afternoon classes on that day,” Kuroo says. “It might be good to check out the competition too,” he continues with a wink, because now that they’re in their second year, Kuroo has started staying behind for volleyball practice at his school as well, and has apparently been making a name for himself, too.

“And you never know what could happen, you could be needed for any reason,” Daishou adds.

Slowly, Yaku is starting to believe that Daishou can see into the future.

It’s at the end of the first set, that it happens: the libero and the wing spiker next to him dive for the same ball, resulting in an ugly-looking collision—the libero claims to be fine, but there’s already a hefty bruise forming on his cheek, and the coach sends him off to the infirmary, while Yaku switches in at a moment’s notice.

It’s just a practice match. Against one of the strongest teams in Tokyo, but still, a practice match. He takes a deep breath. It doesn’t matter that it’s his first appearance during a match in university. He just has to play.

“I’ll take those balls,” Yaku tells the wing spiker, who ended up unharmed.

“Uh, are you sure—”

“I’ll take them,” Yaku repeats, perhaps a little rudely considering he’s talking to an upperclassman, but something must have gotten through, since the spiker just nods.

The next serve is hit by the team’s current ace, strong and fast and aimed at exactly the same spot as the serve before. Yaku calls out ‘Got it!’ and moves just step behind where he knows the ball will land, angles his arms just so—

The ball goes up, with barely a spin to it, just on top of the setter. He hears ‘ _oooh_ ’s from the spectators watching them, along with two distinct male cheers. He grins.

* * *

They end up losing the first set, since the other team was close to winning anyway, but they win the next three, and Yaku delights in the sweet feeling of victory, even if it was just a practice match. It’s not that he plays just to win, exactly, but it’s always nice to have a clear result to show for your hard work, especially since he hasn’t felt it in over a year now.

And well, it is also nice to see his teammates and coach smile at him proudly, telling him he did well, that he was indispensable for their victory.

It gets a little overbearing by the time he joins up with Daishou and Kuroo though.

“You really were the MVP there, Yakkun!” Kuroo says for what feels like the hundredth time.

“I still can’t believe you received two direct hits from that ace in a row,” Daishou adds. “That was so... awesome!” he says with rare, open sincerity.

Yaku would be lying if he said that he wasn’t proud of that move, even if in the moment he cursed himself out for bumping the ball over the net, making it a perfect follow-up hit for the ace—but he did receive that second one to the setter, so it turned out well enough. ‘It’s not _that_ great,’ he’d said at first, because he has seen it done before, but then Kuroo reminded him how amazed they all were when they saw that during the recording of one of Karasuno’s matches. Yaku still admires Yuu greatly, for his sheer skill and drive to improve even further, but his competitiveness also makes him delight in the way that he can do the same things as the other libero, too.

“We should go out and celebrate,” Kuroo says.

“Oh, you do actually have good ideas sometimes,” Daishou replies. “We could go to that stir-fry place—”

“Hell no,” Yaku says, “I just wanna go home and sleep.”

“Are you that tired?” Kuroo asks.

“Well yeah, but mostly my knees just hurt, since I had to do a lot of dives in the match,” he replies. “And I still need to do some homework—”

“Okay, get on,” Kuroo interrupts him, suddenly kneeling down on the ground.

“Huh?”

“I’m carrying you, since your knees hurt.”

“What the hell, that’s not necessary—”

“Give me your bag,” Daishou pipes up, but doesn’t actually wait for an answer, and just starts pulling it off Yaku’s shoulder.

Yaku pulls it back and starts, “I’m _fine_ , it doesn’t hurt that much—”

“Bullshit, if it didn’t hurt that much you wouldn’t have mentioned it at all,” Kuroo says, and wiggles his arms. “Come on now.”

Daishou tugs on the bag again and manages to wrench it out of Yaku’s hand completely. Yaku looks at both of them, staring back at him with serious, determined faces.

“...You’re not letting this go, are you?”

“No,” they reply in unison.

Yaku sighs.

“ _Fine_ , but only until the station,” he relents and drapes his arms over Kuroo’s broad shoulders, who hooks his arms under Yaku’s legs and stands up with ease.

“See it as your victory parade,” Kuroo tells him cheekily.

“Yeah, yeah,” Yaku sighs in exasperation, but he can’t help but return the smile as well.

They continue like that, garnering strange looks from people around them, but Yaku doesn’t mind so much for once, since he spends most of the way laying his head on Kuroo’s shoulder and listening to the other two talk anyway. He almost doesn’t notice when they arrive at the station, though he does just in time to prevent Kuroo from trying to carry him down the stairs. Yaku assures them that he’s fine, again, but Daishou still refuses to give him back his bag and they almost force him to sit down even if it’s just for the 3 stops they have to ride. 

Daishou thrusts Yaku’s bag onto Kuroo as soon as they’re out of their home station and Yaku is about to make his way back home.

“Take this, I’ll carry him back home.”

Kuroo scoffs, “You? Do you even lift, bro?”

“Shut up, be glad I’m taking over so you don’t break your back, old man.”

“You’re _literally_ older than me, what the—”

“You do realize I’m still here, right?”

They both turn towards Yaku in surprise, a little shame maybe, before Daishou resolutely squats down just like Kuroo did earlier. 

“Get on then.”

“I said you can carry me just until the station.”

“Come on, Yakkun, don’t you want to see Daishou fall because he can’t carry you?” Kuroo nudges him in the side.

“It’s literally only ten minutes from here, I’ll be fine—”

“Just let us do something for you!” Daishou blurts out in annoyance, and then hides his face in his hands when he finds both Yaku and Kuroo staring at him. 

“...He’s right, y’know,” Kuroo finally tells him with a gentle push towards Daishou. “You deserve it,” he says with utmost sincerity.

“You guys are so annoying,” Yaku groans out, and quickly climbs over Daishou’s back to hide his blush and his smile from them, because truly, as embarrassing as he knows the situation is, he mainly just feels warm and light, a little fuzzy in his chest.

Daishou wobbles just a bit more than Kuroo when he stands up again, which Kuroo doesn’t miss, but he’s just as solid in his walk home—the slight sway and rumble of his voice as he keeps talking to Kuroo is soothing even, even if Yaku tunes out the conversation itself.

He doesn’t even realize he’s dozed off until the movement stops completely, and then he’s carried up the three steps that lead inside their apartment building.

“Should we wake him up?” Kuroo whispers in question.

“I’ll just carry him up the stairs,” Daishou replies equally quietly.

“Like hell you are, it’s two floors—”

“Stop doubting me,” he hisses, “I’ll do it just fine—”

“I’m not risking you falling on your ass and dropping him with you—”

Yaku can’t help it, and huffs out a laugh. 

“I can carry myself, thank you very much,” he says but hesitates for just a moment before sliding off the warm expanse of Daishou’s back.

* * *

“Gather ‘round, gather ‘round, children!” Daishou announces when he comes back home on the evening of his birthday, and sets the bag on the dining table. “I’ve brought the goods!”

“You sound like you just bought drugs,” Kuroo snorts.

“Well, alcohol _is_ an intoxicant,” Yaku starts, “so technically you’re not wrong.”

“Ew, no science words on my birthday please,” Daishou groans.

“Ethanol,” Kuroo starts.

“Astaxanthin,” Yaku continues.

“Docosahexaenoic acid.”

“Methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosyl—”

“Oh my god, shut up, or I’m not sharing any of this with you!” Daishou exclaims. 

“Ha, as if you’d just drink by yourself,” Kuroo mocks him, and Daishou freezes because, well—he has been the most excited for it out of all of them. It’s not every day that you turn 20, after all.

Yaku gets up and looks into the bag Daishou brought with him, with a six pack of beer and a bottle of red wine.

“That’s not that much,” he comments.

“Excuse me, I’m a poor student, too,” Daishou retorts. “Be happy I bought it for you guys at all.”

“Hey, I made you cupcakes!” Kuroo exclaims.

“And I got you that fancy planner you wanted!”

“It’s my birthday, I’m supposed to get free shit!”

“Wow, are you also one of those people that think Christmas is all about getting presents, too?”

“That’s it, you’re definitely not getting a sip of anything—” Daishou points an accusing finger at Kuroo, and Yaku decides to suggest that they just start already, before the two really get going—he’d been excited about the evening too.

They start with the beer, clinking their bottles together, toasting to Daishou for getting ‘the goods’ and taking hearty gulps, which makes all of them choke just a little bit, which either makes for the best or worst start of the evening, and they all immediately start teasing each other again. 

The conversation soon moves on though, and it’s almost like any other evening they spend just chilling in the living room together, TV running in the background, and Daishou telling them how he’ll spend the weekend celebrating mostly with his family, since his mother invited most of their extended family to the party as well.

“Will your girlfriend be coming too?” Kuroo asks, and Daishou raises an eyebrow.

“You mean Mika? We broke up, like, half a year ago.”

“Wait, what?” Yaku blurts out. “You never told us!”

“...I didn’t?” 

“Don’t think so,” Kuroo replies.

“Why did you break up?” Yaku tentatively asks.

“Ah, well,” Daishou leans back into the couch as he takes another sip from his bottle. “We kinda just drifted apart, and at some point she just said that I had my mind on- on other things, basically,” he continues, and Yaku notices the purposeful vagueness and the uncomfortable shift in his eyes, but decides not to push it. 

“I don’t think long distance was for either of us,” he finishes a little awkwardly, and drinks again, though he pulls a disgusted face right afterwards.

“What?” Yaku asks when he notices.

“... I don’t think I like beer.”

Kuroo breaks out in a cackle. “What, you never had beer before?”

“Of course I have!” Daishou huffs indignantly. “Just never a whole bottle. I thought I might get used to the taste, but honestly, it just gets worse the more I drink it.”

“You could still open the wine,” Yaku suggests.

“Aw, can the adult not handle alcohol after all? Kuroo teases.

“Shut up, as if you’ve drank all that much!” Daishou retorts when he stands up to take the wine bottle to the kitchen.

“I have, in fact!” Kuroo says proudly.

“The training camp does not count, Kuroo.”

“Sure it does!”

“You fell asleep after an hour! You barely even had anything!” 

“Excuse me, I had two cups!”

“That’s literally nothing.”

“No, it’s _literally_ two cups, and I was fifteen, so that’s already-”

“You smuggled alcohol into a training camp?” Daishou asks when he sits back down, with an average glass filled about half-way with the wine.

“Yeah, one of our upperclassmen got it from his older brother,” Yaku explains. 

“It was pretty wild, too.”

“How do you know, you were asleep for pretty much all of it!”

“I woke up a couple of times!” Kuroo says defensively. “...And I saw the pictures, too.”

“Aw, are _you_ actually a lightweight?” Daishou teases.

“He totally is.”

“No, I’m not!”

The evening later on proves that Kuroo, perhaps, actually is one, when he lazily sprawls over Daishou and Yaku’s laps on the couch after having had his one bottle of beer and finishing the rest of Daishou’s, and childishly refusing to get up, even as Daishou complains about being crushed by his heavy ass—but they somehow maneuver around so it’s somewhat comfortable for all of them, and then end up watching an actual decent action flick that Daishou’s always wanted to see but hasn’t gotten around to yet.

Yaku has seen it already and only loosely follows the plot, steadily nursing his own second drink, and his thoughts generally drifting off to different things, when his eyes fall on Kuroo after a while—and he chuckles when he finds him with his eyes closed, mouth half-open in his sleep.

Daishou looks up at the noise, and then follows Yaku’s gaze to his other side, snickering but in a muted, soft way.

“Wow, he _really_ is a lightweight.”

“I know, right?” Yaku replies. “And he’s out like a log, too—Kai and Bokuto braided his hair in the training camp, and he didn’t wake up _at all_.”

“Oh my god, really?” Daishou says around a muffled laugh. “I’d pay to see that.”

“Actually, I think I might still have the pictures.”

“Oh?”

Yaku starts pulling out his chatroom list, scrolling all the way down where he knows his group chat from his first year should still be, while Daishou leans heavily onto his shoulder to look at the screen, too. Yaku finds that he doesn’t mind, actually enjoys the added warmth, when he finally finds all the pictures from that evening deep within the group chat’s history.

“Oh my god,” Daishou exclaims again, this time not being able to hold back at the display—Kuroo’s crooked, sleepy face framed by two horribly mismatched braids hanging off from either side of his head, followed by earlier pictures, when he still had his face pressed into the pillows, and then Kai and Bokuto, sitting on either side of him, one braid in hand, looking red-faced themselves but smiling at the camera with peace signs.

They go through the rest of the pictures too, Yaku leaning onto Daishou too, so he can hold his phone between them and scroll through, most of the pictures blurry, but he can remember the events happening therein surprisingly well, and Daishou giggles adorably at Yaku’s stories, even though they’re probably not even that funny—but he decides to attribute that to the alcohol, rather than his mediocre storytelling skills.

“Did you get in trouble, in the end?” Daishou asks him at the end of the improvised slideshow.

“Oh hell yeah,” Yaku replies. “Our coaches caught us all pretty much red-handed and they chewed us out probably for a solid hour. They notified our parents and everything, and they almost decided to cancel the training camp as a whole, but in the end they just cancelled the barbecue that they planned for us at the end of the training camp, and they made us all do chores as punishment—” He pauses for a second, and Daishou hums questioningly at his ear. “... Wow, that sounds pretty bad, when I say it out loud.”

“It does, kinda.”

“Well, we deserved it,” Yaku says sheepishly. “But it was also kinda worth it,” he laughs at the end. 

“Did Kuroo have to do all that too?”

“Oh, no, me and Kai told the coaches that he slept through the whole thing, since he really didn’t do anything,” he replies.

“Damn,” Daishou says in awe. “That’s so nice of you, I would’ve forced him to get punished with me.”

Yaku hums in thought. “I don’t think you would have. You’re honest at heart.”

Daishou stays quiet for a while, and Yaku wonders if he overstepped some unseen boundary, but then the other breathes out slowly.

“...Still, you’re pretty good friends.”

“I mean, I guess. Even though we really couldn’t stand each other at first.”

“Really?” Daishou asks in surprise.

“Yeah—he just really pissed me off. Honestly, it was pretty similar to how you two still are.”

“So basically, Kuroo is the problem here,” Daishou notes with mirth.

Yaku chuckles quietly, “I guess, yeah.” 

Daishou chuckles along with him too, but then it fades out into a quiet sigh.

“...It must be nice, though.”

Yaku raises an eyebrow. “We’re pretty good friends, too, you know” he says in slight confusion, motioning between them. “And you’re pretty good friends with Kuroo too, even if you both deny it.”

Daishou huffs indignantly, but doesn’t say anything. “...But you guys are different,” he ends up saying, a noticeable drop in his voice.

“Hey,” Yaku puts a hand on Daishou’s shoulder, and makes sure to look him resolutely into the eyes. “Just because I got to know you later than him, doesn’t mean you’re less of a friend to me,” he says. “I mean, you guys are both… you’re both important to me, yeah?”

Yaku feels the embarrassment heat up his face immediately, wonders if it’s visible in the low light that the television provides for them, but he refuses to look away, because he can’t—he won’t have Daishou doubting their friendship, or himself, no matter what.

Daishou gapes at him with wide eyes, and Yaku thinks that maybe, maybe he can see a blush on the other’s face, too, but Daishou quickly shifts his gaze away and chuckles once, dryly. 

“Thanks,” he replies then, and his smile sees genuine, at least. “Sorry, I don’t know why I got so weird—”

“Hey, don’t apologize for that,” Yaku interrupts him gently. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

“Uhm, yeah,” Daishou stammers out, and looks back to the TV screen. “Friends.”

Yaku gets the feeling that that’s still not the whole story, but Daishou seems to want to end the conversation, and Yaku respects that. He still makes sure to lean onto Daishou’s shoulder, to get his point across, somehow.

They end up continuing watching the movie in silence, even though he thinks that neither of them really knows what’s going on anymore, when he suddenly feels Kuroo shift, and as he looks over the other is pressing one of the couch pillows to his head.

“...What is he doing?” Daishou whispers cautiously.

“Oh, he always sleeps like that.”

“What? Doesn’t he suffocate?”

“Beats me,” Yaku replies, and they stay silent for another moment, both watching to see if Kuroo will wake up or not—or just because.

Slowly, he sees Daishou reach his hand out to the part of Kuroo’s hair that’s still visible between the pillow and the couch. He puts it on the other’s head with almost painful care and strokes through it once, twice. A look of surprise crosses his face, and he keeps petting Kuroo’s hair, fingers weaving through the strands, and there’s something fascinating about watching him be so entranced by it, face completely unguarded.

Then, Kuroo hums lowly in his sleep, and Daishou pulls his hand away as if it's been burned. Yaku can’t help the low giggle, and Daishou now looks to him almost in horror instead.

“It’s okay, I won’t tell him,” Yaku grins.

“T-Tell him what? There’s nothing to tell,” Daishou crosses his arms defensively, and Yaku chuckles again, leaning over to run his hands through the smooth dark strands too.

“It’s surprisingly soft, isn’t it?” he murmurs.

“...Yeah,” Daishou replies, sounding a little out of breath.

* * *

Yaku vaguely remembers that he and Daishou somehow finished watching the movie and that they laughed about not remembering any of it. Then, they slowly got up, moving and pushing at Kuroo, who still didn’t wake up, and Yaku remembers a surprisingly strong hand steadying him, for some reason, and he found himself sitting on the couch again, watching Daishou’s retreating figure move their bottles and cups to the kitchen.

The next time he opens his eyes he finds himself not sitting, but lying, and with a heavy, warm weight around his waist and pressed up against his front as a whole. It isn’t bad, quite the opposite really, and when the first rays of consciousness tickle his mind he finds himself leaning deeper into the warmth, letting himself be surrounded by it and a musky but fresh, distantly familiar smell.

Still, Yaku is unfortunately one of those people that cannot go back to sleep once they wake up, so slowly but surely he becomes more aware of himself—of the way his eyes are itchy with physical tiredness, how his bladder is starting to press against his body uncomfortably, how his back and shoulders are vaguely tense, how when he slowly opens his eyes, they have nowhere to look but the expanse of Kuroo’s neck and collar—

Yaku wakes as if he’s been doused with cold water. He looks down on himself and finds a blanket thrown over both of them, Kuroo’s arms steadily wrapped around his arms and a leg loosely thrown over his own ankles, effectively trapping him against the back of the couch. He still can’t think of it as truly uncomfortably, somehow, but his rapidly increasing heart rate tells him that he should try to get out, somehow, _now_.

“Hey,” he starts, his voice quiet and a little hoarse, to no avail.

“Hey,” he tries again, and attempts to wiggle his body out of the hold too, but that only makes Kuroo hum deep in his throat, and turn so he’s almost lying on top of Yaku instead. 

“Kuroo,” Yaku says, louder this time, and that gets the other to finally stirr and slowly open his eyes. 

They’re furrowed and sleepy at first, widening with each slow blink, before Kuroo is outright staring at him. Yaku can’t quite read that look—surprised, for sure, but there’s something else in there, something subtler—softer, even. He can’t bring himself to look away either, can’t even tell if his own face has that kind of expression too.

Kuroo shakes himself out of whatever trance he was in and tries to move away, catching his arms on Yaku’s body.

“Oh shit, sorry.”

“It’s, uh, it’s fine,” Yaku replies.

Kuroo sits up and stretches, and Yaku has nowhere else to look but at his muscular arms and broad shoulders moving back, the movement audibly cracking something in his body. 

“Fuck, I need a hot bath,” he groans.

“Go ahead then,” Yaku yawns, his earlier thought of getting up suddenly forgotten.

“‘Kay,” Kuroo replies and stands up, still stretching his arms over his head, making his t-shirt ride upwards, revealing the dip of his back and—Yaku should stop staring, he realizes, and forces his gaze away, first at the wall-clock telling him that it’s just past 10am, and then at the coffee table, where two glasses of water stand, a pack of aspirin in between them. 

His throat cries out for the water immediately, and he downs half of the glass in one gulp, but still notices a piece of paper with writing laid out under the pack on aspirin. He slows down his drinking and picks up the note, which reads:

‘ _I had to catch an early train, hope that if you read this at least one of you isn’t dead. Be back on Sunday :P_ ’ 

Yaku chuckles lowly, fondly. He suddenly realizes that the blanket that’s still lying in his lap must have come from Daishou, and he remembers how the other must have cleaned up after all of them and set out water and medication for him and Kuroo just in case, even if they really haven’t had that much to drink. It’s cute, how his note barely pretends to think about their wellbeing while the physical evidence proves otherwise, and all of a sudden Yaku is filled with love for Daishou’s quiet care towards them, filled with love for— 

For Daishou.

He loves Daishou.

He starts choking on the sip of water he was trying to take, violently, physical and emotional signals overlapping and making his heart and mind race at once, because _fuck_ , he hates choking fits like that, and _fuck_ , he _loves_ Daishou, _fuck_ , how did that happen— 

“Yakkun!? You okay!?” he distantly hears Kuroo call out. “Are you throwing up!?” The voice is closer now, and before Yaku knows it he feels a weight next to him shifting the couch, and Kuroo’s strong broad hand clapping on his back. Yaku slowly starts coughing less, and reaches for the water on the table again, which Kuroo gets a hold off first and hastily presses into his hands. He takes a few thirsty gulps, and thankfully feels his throat calm down, and pulls off the glass with a sigh.

“You good?” He hears Kuroo ask seriously, still with a hand on his back, and when Yaku looks up he finds genuine concern in his amber eyes. They’re pretty eyes, he suddenly thinks, and wishes that they’d never again look so upset, because he loves them, and he loves Kuroo too— 

His coughing fit starts all over again, and he hears Kuroo exclaim an ‘ _Oi!_ ’, but Yaku turns him gaze away and drinks the rest of the water, forcing himself to focus just on that, and he especially doesn’t look at Kuroo, hoping to calm himself down with a few deep breaths.

“Hey, are you really alright? Do you need to throw up?” Kuroo asks him.

“No, I’m—I’m good,” Yaku slowly assures him. “Just water in my lungs, no big deal.”

“Are you sure—”

“ _Yes_ ,” he says with a deliberate roll of his eyes. “Go shower now, you stink.”

Kuroo rolls his eyes in response, but finally relents and stands up, trailing his hand up Yaku’s back as he goes, and Yaku doesn’t know if he loves or hates its absence. (He hates it, he knows.) He makes sure that he hears the water in the shower running before he groans into his hands.

God, he’s fucked.

* * *

Yaku does not usually consider himself to be the type of person that runs from his problems, but he’s also someone who needs a clear solution, or at least some kind of starting approach when he does need to resolve an issue—so he’s really not running, but simply… putting it to the side, until he comes up with something. Setting his priorities straight, by studying and practicing more than ever.

He does realize that that’s probably not the soundest thing he could do, but he still sees them often enough, because he knows that he can’t avoid them completely, and if he just happens to excuse himself from common dinners or movie nights more often than usual—then so be it.

He finds that it’s slowly starting to get easier, too. The realization was sudden and disorienting in its appearance, but at the end of the day, he has no choice but to accept it—he’s in love with both of his roommates, and has no idea what to do about it. And truly, he does realize that open communication would be the best option and if anyone else were in that situation he would urge them to just go for it and see what happens—because no matter what, they are friends first and foremost, and he’s reasonably certain they wouldn’t hold it against him—and yet.

And yet, the thought is terrifying, because he knows that sooner or later Kuroo and Daishou will notice something, being as annoyingly observant as they are, and that sooner or later he will have to come forward about his feelings—and then what? Will it be awkward for them, living with someone who has feelings for them? Will it irreparably break their comfortable understanding into a stiff tip-toeing for fear or implying something else? 

Or, Yaku wonders sometimes both in fear and hope, would either of them maybe return his feelings? Would the third person feel left out, or move out entirely? What if, maybe, just maybe, both of them like Yaku back? Would he have to choose, would he be with both of them, would they fight over him, could they all, maybe, possibly— 

Yaku is also a person who doesn’t like overthinking, especially when he knows that it won’t do him any good, so it’s just easier to distract from these thoughts by keeping himself busy otherwise. It’s not avoidance, he tells himself again, it’s just focusing on things that are more relevant to his life at the moment. He’ll get to it, eventually. Probably.

He comes home one night from another late night at the library and doesn’t announce his return, just in case one of his roommates is sleeping already, though he can see light coming from the living room—it doesn’t have to mean anything though, with Kuroo and Daishou being endearingly forgetful sometimes.

He traipses inside casually, ready to make himself a quick snack for dinner, and not at all prepared for the sight of Kuroo and Daishou making out on the couch.

Maybe time suddenly slows down, or maybe Yaku’s mind halts all by itself, but it feels like an agonizingly long time where he can’t help but stare at them—Daishou straddling Kuroo with his back turned towards Yaku, a hand resting on the other’s shoulder while the other one is buried in his hair, while Kuroo has Daishou’s waist in a vice grip, pulling him closer, almost grinding, while they keep hungrily mouthing at each other—

Yaku is not sure if he’s the one who made a sound, or if Kuroo just happened to notice him, but he suddenly finds golden, shocked eyes staring at him, and Daishou’s turning to him right after, mouth agape, if noticeably redder than usual.

“I’m sorry, I-I’ll just—” He motions vaguely to his room and promptly bolts in that direction.

Of course he’d been so selfish, is the first thing he thinks—he’s been lamenting how terrible his life is, crushing on both of his roommates at the same time, and he hadn’t even thought about them liking each other, preferring each other instead. And it suddenly makes so much sense too, just Kuroo and Daishou together, with all their bickering and competitiveness, but still with the same core values, their honesty and care for their loved ones that they try to hide behind their snark, and their unspoken understanding and reluctant respect for each other—

“Yakkun!”

“Yaku! Wait!”

He barely hears them calling after him, the ringing in his ears overpowering, and he stammers out something vaguely like ‘ _It’s okay, I’ll just go—_ ’ when he’s suddenly pulled back by his arm to find Daishou looking at him intently, seriously, with still-flushed cheeks and messed up hair, _god, why is that such a good look on him_ , Kuroo following right behind with that same seriousness, though his eyes are uncertain, hesitant.

“We need to talk,” Daishou breathes out.

“You guys don’t have to explain anything—”

“No, we need to talk—all of us,” Kuroo says, takes a step forward to gently pull at Yaku’s other hand, looking at him almost pleadingly. “Please?”

His mind is still racing, but slowly, Yaku nods, and they all move back into the living room, neither of the others’ hands leaving Yaku’s until they all sit down on their couch, and he tries his very best not to think of the earlier scene he saw, even if he has nowhere to look but between them, no one seemingly wanting to start the conversation they all know they should have.

“So…” Kuroo slowly starts, eyes shifting from Yaku to Daishou and back all over.

“So… What was… that?” Yaku slowly asks. “Are you together, or…?”

“Well, no,” Kuroo replies with a quick glance to Daishou and then uncertainly off to the side. “But, uh…”

“We were talking about you,” Daishou continues.

“About… me?”

“Yeah, since something is definitely up with you lately, so we were trying to figure out what it could be,” Kuroo says. “...Actually, what _is_ up with you?”

“I, uh,” Yaku stutters, already confused and overwhelmed by the situation without his own feelings coming up. “Can you finish with, you know, this?” he manages to ask, gesturing between Kuroo and Daishou.

“Okay, yeah,” Kuroo replies and starts scratching the back of his neck. “Anyways, we were talking about how to help you, and then we kinda started talking about… you…,” he drifts off, nervously looking at Yaku, before he promptly kicks at Daishou and glares at him.

“You say it!”

“Huh? Why me!?”

“You’re a lawyer, you’re good at talking!”

“That doesn’t even _mean_ anything—”

Yaku coughs then, not even on purpose, but it interrupts their argument and Daishou sighs.

“Okay, fine,” he relents and then takes a deep breath, and then a second one right after that. He takes another breath when Kuroo barks at him.

“Will you get to it already!?”

“You say it then, if you’re so impatient!” 

Kuroo snaps his mouth shut then, and Yaku wonders what could be so important, so nerve-wracking for both of them to be blushing and losing their composure this much.

“Okay,” Daishou breathes in and out again, “Okay,” and then unexpectedly puts one of his hands on top of Yaku’s.

“...We like you.”

What.

“What?” His voice feels hoarse.

“We like you,” Kuroo repeats, and follows Daishou’s example by taking his other hand.

“Y-you mean like, as in—”

“Romantically,” he continues. “Gayly. Very gayly. Absolutely full on homo—”

“Oh my god.” Yaku says, retracting both of his hands in order to hide his face in them. “Oh my god,” he borderline groans, only peripherally realizing that that’s probably not a proper response when you’ve just been confessed to, but his mind isn’t capable of processing anything else—Kuroo and Daishou like him. They both like him _back_ , he’s not alone in this, and they like _each other_ —Wait.

“Wait,” he suddenly says as he his head shoots up. “Then what about…” Yaku looks meaningfully between them, and they look away with matching blushes.

“Uh…”

“Well…”

“Do you… like each other too?”

Kuroo and Daishou’s eyes snap onto each other immediately, wide-eyed, almost scared, when Kuroo suddenly swallows, but then steels his face into something serious and sincere. 

“I do.”

“Wait… Really?” Daishou asks.

“I just said that, didn’t I?” Kuroo rolls his eyes, but still smiles at him, softer than his usual sardonic grin. Daishou flushes even more visibly at that, averting his gaze again, almost pouting, really.

“I guess… You’re not that bad, either,” he finally mumbles out.

“Wow, I really feel the love.”

“Who’s talking about love!? I like you, but that’s—”

Yaku laughs. He can’t help himself, happy giggles burst out of his chest without control, and his roommates’ attention falls back onto him. The laughter soon mixes in with sobs as tears of pure relief start gathering in his eyes, but he doesn’t even mind it that much, for the sheer joy he feels.

“I’m so glad,” he finally breathes out, smiling brightly at both of them even as he slowly wipes at his wet eyes.

“Wait, so you also…like us?” Kuroo asks.

“Both of us?” 

“Of course I do!” Yaku exclaims and grabs both of their hands again. “I love you both so much, I didn’t know what to do with myself,” he starts without really thinking, realizes how embarrassing his confession really is, but he’s already started it, so— “I-I was so scared, that this would all change, or that someone would be left behind, but—” He’s suddenly pulled into Kuroo’s broad chest, a comforting arm around his waist as another one finds its way into his hair, swiftly followed by another warm body on his back, Daishou’s head resting on his shoulder.

“We… we can have this,” Daishou says slowly. “We can make it work.”

“We _will_ make it work,” Kuroo replies, and Yaku hums an affirmative, thoroughly content.

They stay like that for what could have been minutes or hours, simply breathing each other in and sharing each other’s space, relishing in the warmth and comfort of their newfound connection. Yaku almost dozes off just like that, when Kuroo’s hand suddenly shifts from his head down to his neck, and then to his cheek, almost cradling it when he gently makes Yaku look up at him.

“Can… Can I kiss you?”

Yaku only hesitates for a moment out of surprise, but it’s enough for Daishou to pipe up instead. 

“Huh? Why do you get to kiss him first?” 

“Because I asked first, duh.” 

“So? That doesn’t mean—”

Kuroo leans down and quickly presses his lips to Yaku’s and Yaku is only met with Kuroo’s giddy smile when he actually realizes what happened—and then Kuroo smirks and sticks his tongue out at Daishou.

“Ha! First.”

“That _barely_ even counts as kiss, you child.”

“Oh? What would you do then?” Yaku asks in a sudden bout of confidence, and delights in the way Daishou’s eyes widen in shock.

“I— This,” he says and swiftly puts a hand to Yaku’s neck, pulling himself forwards. Even if Daishou leaned in fast, his kissing is surprisingly low—thorough, seemingly savouring every touch of their lips, barely moving backwards before coming back for more. Yaku almost feelings like he’s drowning in the deep, warm intensity of it, but he welcomes it, always pushes back, too.

He sighs into the kiss when Daishou licks at his lips in a way Yaku didn’t know he desperately wanted until now, and eagerly opens his own mouth in response. He feels Daishou’s hand pull him even closer by the neck, and a bigger one coming down on his thigh, which makes him sigh again—he revels in this feeling, being between them, being _wanted_ by both of them.

He starts to feel even more confident, a little mischievous, pushes himself up just a little bit for leverage, and snags his teeth on Daishou’s bottom lip, which earns him a low, delicious hum. Yaku sucks on it some more, hoping to coax a few more sounds out of him, when he slowly pulls back, only letting go at the last possible moment. He opens his eyes and feels a surge of pride when he sees Daishou’s face—eyes and pupils blown wide, matching flushes on his lips and cheeks.

“Fuck,” Daishou finally breathes, and Yaku can’t help the grin in reply.

“I’m not sure if I’m jealous or turned on,” Kuroo suddenly says.

“Hey, I should be the jealous one, you guys got to make out with each other first!” Yaku exclaims, and then remembers something. “Wait, you still didn’t tell me how that happened!”

“Uh,” they both reply intelligently, looking uncertainly at each other, when Daishou clears his throat and starts. 

“Well, we realized that we both like you… and then we started arguing about who would be better… for you.”

“And I said that he’s probably a bad kisser,” Kuroo continues, “and he said something like, uh, ‘Find out yourself’ and… yeah….”

Yaku stares at them for a moment before throwing his head back in laughter, reaching out to take both of their hands in his. "You're _ridiculous_ ," he manages to get out, but he knows it's not really a complaint—he wouldn't change them for the world.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading until here!! also feel free to follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/emeraIdpalace) where i still have a fic giveaway going on!


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